All posts by Monica Rhea

“Come in after 6pm this Halloween dressed as a horrifying processed food product and we’ll give you a burrito, bowl, salad, or an order of tacos filled with freshly cooked, naturally raised ingredients for only $2.

Up to $1,000,000 of the proceeds from Chipotle’s Boorito promotion will be donated to Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution — a non-profit campaign (part of America Gives Back, a registered 501(c)(3) charity).”

Be sure to check out the “horrors of processed food,” or just watch this video. It’s scarier than any creatures you’ll see wandering the streets tonight.

Every week at Sustain Mizzou we try to eat fresh, local, and/or whole food. This week Rachel Brunner made delicious soups from scratch. Try them yourself!

Chicken and Rice Soup!
Served at SM General Meeting on 27 Oct 2010

Ingredients:

1 chicken

3 carrots- thinly sliced crossways

1 white onion- chopped

Feel free to add any of your favorite vegetables!

1 cup basmati rice

1 bay leaf

Salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

Boil water in a large pot. Place chicken in boiling water, reduce heat and cook for at least 35 minutes until chicken is cooked through. Remove chicken from the pot and set aside to cool. Strain chicken broth and discard solids in strainer. Pull chicken meat off bones in bite-size pieces; set aside. Discard bones and other extras.

Heat oven to 400 degrees F. Halve the squashes and place face down in a glass pan with ¼ inch water. Bake for about an hour, until soft. Remove squash from oven. Spoon out squash from skins and puree in a blender or food processor until smooth. Heat in a large pot. Stir. Add apple juice until squash is a soupy consistency. Add ginger (we put in a lot of ginger), salt, and pepper to taste.

Usually when the issue of trayless dining arises, the conversation is all about waste.

Waste is important, but I think there’s a more important issue here, one that we want promote instead of discourage: connectedness.

My experience in the dining halls was, in a word, rushed. Grab as much food as possible, as quickly as possible, scarf down what’s edible and throw the rest away.

I was usually left with a feeling of emptiness, and a longing for dinner around the table back home, and not just because the food tasted better there.

Alvina Lopez, a journalism student at Ashford College, touched on this yesterday in a blog posted to Wasted Food. You can read the full post there, but here’s my favorite part:

“I myself was at first cynical about traylessness. I didn’t think it would make much of difference, regardless of the intentions behind the initiative. But then after a week or two, I noticed substantive changes in my own behavior and my fellow diners’. People stayed at meals longer. We ate more slowly, since those who wanted seconds waited until the foot traffic slowed down. The whole experience just became more enjoyable and relaxed. And, being someone who was raised to be sensitive about food waste, I noticed specifically that trashcans were not overflowing when I left the cafeteria.

Eventually the grumbling about the lack of trays subsided, grumbling that I suspect comes with adjusting to pretty much any change from the normal routine…Having made the trayless transition, I firmly believe that all schools should try it out, and not simply give up after a few weeks of student complaints. It’s really such a simple idea, one that encourages more mindful dining.”

I am coming to realize that mindfulness, after awareness, is the next step to a sustainable society. Mindfulness of the cycle, the connections that bring food, products, and people to and away from us, is essential. Today, those connections are often invisible, allowing our minds to focus only on the immediate circumstances instead of on the complex consequences of our actions.

In November I will be attending a conference at UC Davis through the Agricultural Sustainability Institute that will focus on “Making the Invisible Visible” I’ll let you know how it goes.

In the meantime, think about where you go, what you buy, and what you eat. How are these things made possible?

For a look at consumerism and what it’s doing to our psyches, watch Shop Til you Drop. Don’t let the cheesy title scare you away.

It’s nice to see something grabbing the public attention when it comes to clean energy. I’m amazed that Mr. Obama has waited so long to reinstall solar panels on the White House. It means practically nothing in terms of physically decreasing energy use from coal and oil, but as a symbol it is huge.

I wrote this script for Newsy.com and I think it sums up the situation. It could be a signal of future muscle being put into climate and clean energy legislation.

Earlier this year, reseachers at the University of Texas at Austin released a food waste study

A report on the study noted that in 2007, U.S. food waste amounted to the equivalent of 350 million barrels of oil.

That estimate is conservative based on the amount of food Americans wasted in 1995: 27 percent

Jonathon Bloom, author of the blog Wasted Food, says the amount of food we waste is closer to 40%

So what can you do?

Only take what you need and know you will eat, whether it be from the grocery store, the farmers market, or the dining halls. Try planning meals ahead of time, and foregoing a tray if you eat on campus.

Compost your food waste. Contrary to popular belief, it’s not smelly (as long as you take care of your worms and their tasty treats.) Find out how